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Sunday, November 22, 2015

Brickout and Copter Command - Intellivision Review

Brickout and Copter Command

I
recently picked up two new Intellivision games from IntellivisionRevolution: Brickout and Copter Command. The former is a clone of Atari’s Breakout while the latter is a cleverly
titled riff on Activision’s Chopper
Command for the Atari 2600.

If
you have an Intellivision Flashback or a copy of Intellivision Lives! for the DS, you’ve probably played Brickout,
which was originally programmed in 1981 for Mattel by Rich O'Keefe of APh Technological
Consulting. It was supposed to appear on the Triple Action cartridge (meaning that
cartridge would have had a different name), but Mattel, fearing legal action
from Atari, shelved the game. (Mattel shelved a Pong-like game called Hockey
as well).

Now,
thanks to IntellivisionRevolution, you can own a copy of Brickout for your Intellivision, complete with retro style box,
manual, cartridge, and two keypad overlays. You guide a Pong-like paddle horizontally along the bottom of the screen,
rebounding a ball into a wall of bricks near the top, and you should avoid
missing the ball. When the ball hits a brick, it disappears, and when the ball
breaks through the wall, it can ricochet off the top of the playfield and back
into the wall. Your goal is, of course, to knock out all the bricks. As in the Progressive
mode of Super Breakout, brick walls
descend as you play.

Brickout is certainly a
playable and even entertaining game, but it comes up lacking when compared to
the obvious: Breakout and Super Breakout for the Atari 2600.
Unlike those games, Brickout lacks the
rotary control offered by Atari’s indispensable paddle controllers, meaning Brickout doesn’t have the speed or
precision of control of the Atari games.

Many Breakout clones have incorporated a speed button to make the paddle
go faster when desired, but, unfortunately, Brickout
doesn’t add this feature. The
back of the Brickout box calls it a “one player action game,” but the manual
rightly says it’s for “1 or 2 players.” In two-player mode, the second gamer
controls another paddle, and the two of you cooperate for a high score. There
is no competitive option. The game has simplistic graphics and sounds and no
music.

If
you are a huge Intellivision fan and love to collect boxed games, then by all
means grab a copy of Brickout. If you
just want to play a brick-and-paddle game on a vintage console, stick to Super Breakout for the Atari 2600. It
has more options and far superior controls.

Unlike
Brickout, which was programmed
decades ago, Copter Command is an
all-new creation. According to the back of the box, “You are the pilot of a
helicopter gunship. Your mission is to provide cover during a counterattack
deep into enemy territory. Watch your long-range scanner and destroy the enemy
squadrons intent on eliminating your convoys of supply trucks, ambulances,
tanks, and ships. You must act quickly or fail your mission!”

What
this amounts to is a Defender-like, wraparound
side-scroller in which you fire a steady stream of lasers at airborne enemies,
which you can monitor on a radar at the bottom/center of the screen. Meanwhile,
said airborne enemies fire bombs at vehicles that move along the ground to the
left. After you destroy all the airborne enemies to complete a level, you get
extra points for any remaining ground-based vehicles, which are “rescued convoy.”

There
are two modes of play: Classic and Remixed. Classic mimics Chopper Command pretty well, though the gameplay is not quite as
dynamic—it’s hard to capture that certain magic something that makes most Activision
titles special. Even so, Copter Command
is a fine, fast-action, rapid-fire shooter that any fan of the genre should
enjoy. The game is a lot of fun, and the controls are surprisingly tight and
accurate, which isn’t always the case with the quirkily designed Intellivision control
discs.

Also
unlike Brickout, Copter Command has lots of options, including the aforementioned
Remixed mode, which offers additional themes. In addition to the standard
Desert environment, the game cycles through Snow, Night, and Ocean, which is pretty
darned cool. (This reminds me a little of Left Turn Only’s Space Patrol, a Moon Patrol
clone for the Intellivision that lets you travel on different planets in
addition to the moon.) Other options in Copter
Command include two difficulty levels (Cadet and Commander), fast or slow
fire, begin with 3-7 lives, autofire on or off, and invincible on or off.

Copter Command has larger, slightly
blockier vehicles than Chopper Command,
and it’s not as colorful—it’s missing the multi-color gradations found in the mountains/horizon
at the top of the screen in the Activision game (again, more Activision magic).
On the other hand, it has great title screen music, something you won’t hear in
Chopper Command.

In summary

I
love so-called homebrew games, and I think it’s awesome that programmers are
creating new titles for the consoles I grew up playing. Anytime I receive a new
game for the Atari 2600, ColecoVision, or, in this case, Intellivision, it’s
Christmas in the early ’80s all over again.

Regarding
the two titles in question, Brickout,
with its bland controls and lack of options, may underwhelm all but the
hardiest of Intellivision collectors, but Copter
Command, an expanded take on an Atari 2600 favorite, will entertain most
anyone with a healthy hankering for a hardcore shooter.

3 comments:

Thanks for posting this review. You confirmed my instincts when I was looking at buying a couple of homebrew titles. Copter Command looks fun to play, but it is hard for me to justify a Brickout purchase.

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About Me

A freelance writer, I'm the author of the Classic Home Video Games series, The 100 Greatest Console Video Games: 1977-1987, Encyclopedia of KISS, and other books. I've had articles published in numerous magazines and newspapers, including the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Filmfax, Fangoria, AntiqueWeek, The Writer, Mystery Scene, and more.
Contact me at brettw105 AT sbcglobal.net.